Archive for the ‘Professional Conduct’ Category

Teachers need to stay out of politics. We need to keep our politics to ourselves, regardless of the temptation to influence or indoctrinate our students.

I am all for better treatment of refugees, but that message is a political one and teachers shouldn’t let their politics mix with their basic responsibilities – to teach the curriculum and to look after the students’ wellbeing.

I want my students to make their own minds up about social issues and come to their own conclusions.

HUNDREDS of Victorian ­primary and high schools teachers will wear pro-refugee T-shirts in classrooms as part of a national push to close offshore detention camps.

Organisers say school-based action will shine a light on refugees’ plight, but the state Opposition has criticised it as “political indoctrination”.

Up to 500 teachers at 30 Victorian schools will don T-shirts emblazoned with “Teachers for Refugees — Close the Camps, Bring them Here” and hold “informal discussions” in class from Monday in a stance backed by the education union.

If you want to get drunk and do foolish things in your non-working hours don’t become a teacher. We are role models long before our first lesson and long after the bell at the end of the day. Emily Higgins will be embarrassed by her actions.

I have long argued that teachers who abuse the privilege bestowed on them by having affairs with their impressionable students are evil. Their conduct is absolutely reprehensible. And whilst I absolutely don’t agree with the conduct of this upset father, it is up to teachers to avoid any altercations by leaving their students alone. Similarly, it is up to the courts to send a loud and clear message that teachers who are involved sexually with their students face many years behind bars:

Footage has emerged online of a teacher stripped and beaten after an alleged affair with a high-school pupil in China.

Internet users claiming to be his former pupils said on social media that the man had sexually assaulted a female student, reports the People’s Daily Online.

The parents of the girl reportedly beat and stripped the man before the video was captured in Wei County, northern China’s Hebei province.

In the footage the teacher can be seen sitting on the floor without clothes as people can be heard crowding around the man and talking.

Other onlookers can be seen filming the incident on their phones.

The teacher sways backwards and forwards throughout the video.

Staff at Weixian Number 1 Middle School confirmed that the man in the video was a teacher at the school surnamed Li.

He had been a teacher at the school for some years.

They said that ‘student evaluation of Li’s classes were good.’

Police have confirmed that the incident did take place and have said that they are still investigating the case.

The local Public Security Bureau issued a notification on August 9 confirming that they found a naked man suspected of crimes on the north outer ring road.

The man was injured and so police took him to hospital.

In March this year, it was reported that a teacher tried to rape a female student in Lingshan County, China’s Guangxi Autonomous Region.

Teachers immediately intervened and managed to free the student from the 30-year-old male teacher, surnamed Huo. The victim reportedly suffered no injuries.

Photos from the incident show the naked man grabbing hold of the girl from behind and pushing her against a wall in broad daylight.

I have doubts as to whether or not this incident was a “mistake” as the teacher in question claims. What bothers me is the minuscule fine of $300.

Here you have an experienced teacher, who can be put to use in a number of constructive areas such as mentoring, learning support and special needs assistance and they fine her a small sum.

Teachers make mistakes. Some of the deserve instant dismissal. Some of them deserve a warning or apology. Some are harder to grade. Surely, instead of fining them, we could be using their expertise by giving them extra unpaid responsibilities. That way, as part of their penance, they can give back to their profession and help meet the demand for support in areas such as those mentioned above.

A Bronx middle-school teacher rattled her students — including one who was near tears — by showing an ISIS video of a terrorist beheading a journalist, documents show.

South Bronx Academy for Applied Media veteran Alexiss Nazario faced termination, but was let off with a $300 fine last summer after acknowledging she made a mistake by not previewing the clip or getting the principal’s permission.

Investigators spoke to three eighth-graders who were freaked out by the macabre clip, which showed a masked man holding a knife to the neck of a kneeling ­victim clad in orange.

The students testified that the video blacked out the actual beheading but showed its gruesome aftermath: the man’s severed head placed on top of his own chest.

“I’m scared at what I just saw. Ms. Nazario showed a beheading video and I was really scared,” one girl told a school staffer right after seeing the clip, according to an ­investigation by the Office of the Special Commissioner of Investigation.

“I don’t even watch scary videos at home,” the girl added.

Another student told probers he lost sleep the night after seeing the video, which had made him feel “uncomfortable.

“It was gross,” he said.

Nazario initially tried to blame the kids by telling investigators one of them had searched for the video on a computer attached to an overhead screen, during a lesson about Iraq, terrorism and ISIS.

Two students told investigators it was Nazario who had cued up the clip.

The technology teacher said the students started “shouting out” that they wanted to watch the video, but acknowledged she was responsible for what happened.

She couldn’t explain why she thought her 13- and 14-year-old students could handle the video, but one recalled her saying, “This is what’s going on in the real world.”

Nazario, a teacher for 26 years whose annual salary tops $105,000, told a different story Friday — telling The Post she had accidentally played the wrong video.

“I was scrolling looking for a specific video. I clicked on the wrong thing. It was a mistake. It was an error,” she said. “I freaked out. I had no idea that was playing.”

Department of Education officials tried to terminate her based on the video and two unrelated charges — but arbitrator Eugene Ginsberg said her years of ­unblemished service merited a lighter penalty.

Some will call it an opinion, others will claim the teacher was just trying to get his student to think realistically, but I think it is a classic case of a teacher interfering with the dreams and aspirations of a student:

Having just picked up her third Bafta in a glittering career, Kate Winslet’s post awards press conference should have been a moment to bask in her acting achievements.
But instead, the British actress, who scooped the best supporting actress gong for her role in Steve Jobs, the biopic of the Apple founder, revealed that as a teenager she had once been told to “settle for the fat girl parts”.

Winslet, 40, dedicated her Bafta award to women who have been criticised. “When I was 14, I was told by a drama teacher that I might do OK if I was happy to settle for the fat girl parts,” she said after Sunday night’s ceremony. “So what I always feel in these moments is that any young woman who has ever been put down by a teacher, by a friend, by even a parent, just don’t listen to any of it, because that’s what I did – I kept on going and I overcame my fears and got over my insecurities.”

After a day of speculation, in which teachers at Winslet’s former school were forced to deny uttering the remark, the star’s spokesman eventually disclosed last night that the alleged comments were made at an independent drama workshop in London.

The actress attended Redroofs theatre school in Maidenhead, Berks, from the age of 11 to 16, but her former head teacher dismissed the notion that any member of staff would have said such remarks to a pupil.

June Rose, 85, who founded Redroofs and taught Ms Winslet speech and drama classes, told The Daily Telegraph: “I’ve never heard that comment before and I would assume if a teacher said something like that to a young pupil, they would immediately tell their parents and the parent would be straight on to the school.

“She would surely have complained to us. I can’t imagine anyone would say that to a child. I would take a very dim view of somebody who said that.”

Ms Rose said that when Winslet was around that age she had won roles in many productions, including Alice in Wonderland and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. “They are hardly roles for a child who is going to be hard to cast,” Ms Rose added. “She was never fat actually, but doesn’t every child think they are too fat or too thin at that age? She wasn’t skinny, let’s say, but she was certainly not fat.

“She did very well with us, she was head girl and we are delighted with what she has achieved.”

Winslet also attended the Starmaker theatre school in Reading, of which she is now patron, at evenings and weekends from the age of 10 to 15. But Michelle Palin, the manager, noted that they do not employ teachers but have visiting directors. “We never refer to them as drama teachers,” she said.

Winslet has spoken previously about being bullied about her weight at Redroofs, where she says she was nicknamed “Blubber”. Carolyn Keston, Ms Winslet’s former dance teacher, once reportedly said: “She was not grossly overweight, but she was chunky.” Ms Keston did not respond to requests for comment yesterday (Monday).

Winslet’s publicist said last night that the remark referred to by the star “occurred during an independent drama workshop over a summer in London”.

“Do you understand that referring to a female student’s breasts as ‘things’ or ‘friends’ is inappropriate?” Boodram was asked in the hearing, Kinsella’s ruling states.

His reply: “No, I did not understand that then, and I really don’t know if it is. I mean, the way I see it, it’s not, but I could be wrong.”

Boodram, who made $85,110 last year, also posted on Facebook last week that the trial was “inherently ­biased against the teacher.”

“It matters not how fabulous a defense you mount, you never get off scot free,” he wrote.

Kinsella also found that Boodram, 58, inappropriately rubbed a girl’s back, hugged a girl “chest to chest,” and pulled on ­another’s ears, causing the student pain.

Boodram, a native of Guyana who served six years in the US military before attending City College of New York, admitted during the hearing he made the comments and “expressed regret.” He said students were not adhering to the school’s dress code, and he was trying to get them to cover up.

When one girl wore an open sweater over her shirt, Boodram “stared at her breasts” and “closed her sweater with a paper clip,” says a report by independent schools investigator Richard Condon.

Boodram had received all satisfactory ratings. Principal David Neering was once quoted as praising Boodram: “He does an excellent job of establishing relationships and bonding with the kids. They know that he cares about them.”

But several girls testified that Boodram, despite helping them academically, made them feel uncomfortable, Kinsella’s ruling said.

The Department of Education removed Boodram from the classroom in February 2014 when the complaints surfaced. After Kinsella’s ruling in June, the DOE assigned Boodram to the Absent Teacher Reserve, a pool of substitutes moved from school to school.

A high school in southern China has apologised after an intern teacher forced several pupils to walk on their hands as punishment, a local newspaper reports.

A posting made on social media on Friday claimed several teens from Xixiang Middle School in Shenzhen, just over the border from Hong Kong, had been physically punished after they disobeyed instruction from a gym teacher, according to the Southern Metropolis News.

A photo published with the post showed the bloodied hands of one teen, who was said to be enrolled in the school.

Another photo showed a school form carrying a written explanation by several pupils, who admitted they had missed gym class and their parents should not blame the teachers for the punishment they suffered.

The school authority and the education bureau of Baoan district, where the school is located, confirmed a teacher had forced the teens to walk on their hands, according to the News.

The instructor wanted to discipline the pupils and force them to do additional physical training but made a wrong judgment call.

The school said it would pay for the pupils’ medical fees and officials had visited their parents to offer an apology.

Teachers are being accused of unprofessional and criminal behaviour like never before. The rise in accusations is alarming and a clear indicator that the punishments metered out against them are not substantial enough:

Serious misconduct allegations against Education Department staff rose 40 per cent last year amid sharp increases in accusations of inappropriate online or sexualised contact with students, physical assault and fraud or theft.

The statistics have prompted the teachers’ union to remind members they are not students’ friends and should never accept social media approaches from them.

Misconduct allegations against State school staff are automatically referred to the Corruption and Crime Commission for external oversight.

Lower level allegations are resolved at school or district level, with the Education Department’s head office keeping an eye on them. More serious accusations go straight to head office.

The department’s latest annual report reveals that these centrally managed allegations increased sharply from 268 and 276 in the previous two years to 385 in 2014-15.

The biggest single-year increase was a 74 per cent jump in allegations of in-appropriate behaviour, which can range from accusations of inappropriate contact via social media to alleged “sexualised contact with students”.

These leapt from 84 allegations in 2013-14 to 146 last financial year. In the past three financial years, physical assault allegations have risen from 55 to 78 to 106, while fraud and theft accusations have risen from 18 to 24 to 32.